


Phoenix Reborn

by moonlight_petal



Series: We are family verse [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Case Fic, Family Feels, Gen, Grandpa Jack in action, Mac becomes a proud dad, Mac's future within the Phoenix, Team as Family, kind of, nervous Mac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 16:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_petal/pseuds/moonlight_petal
Summary: 'This had to work. The safety of his family was on the line, not to mention his own future with the Phoenix.'About six months after Mac suddenly became a father, decisions must be made about his future within the Phoenix. The family came up with a plan.





	Phoenix Reborn

**Author's Note:**

> And another one... I've been talking with one of my commenters about how David's appearance will affect Mac's role at the Phoenix. This is the solution I came up with.

** Phoenix Reborn **

 

"Alright guys, let's do this..." Mac called out over the comm system. "Take a left at the end of the hallway and then the next right, there should be a staircase to the underground level." he led his team through the compound, keeping an eye on both the building schematics and the videofeed of the security cameras Riley had accessed before. His fingers restlessly played with a paperclip that had changed shaped several times already. This had to work. The safety of his family was on the line, not to mention his own future with the Phoenix.

 

"Stop!" Jack whispered softly, holding out a hand to keep Riley and Bozer behind himself. They waited in silence for a moment, neither wanting to disturb the focus of the older agent. "Alright, I hear at least two hostiles, more likely there are three. Mac, what do the cams say?"

 

"Give me a second..." the blond flicked through the various camera angles. "Yeah, you're right, three hostiles heading in your direction, can you take them out? Preferably quietly?" Mac asked.

 

"Can I take them out, he asks. Of course I can do that, can't promise the quietly part though. Depends... are they moving in a group or seperately?"

 

"One group of two coming in from the East side, the other going solo from the West. The guy from the West should reach your hallway any minute now. Be ready... three, two, one... go!"

 

Jack might as well have had his eyes closed in that moment, he put blind trust into Mac's observational skills, reaching out the moment he said go, easily closing his arm around the neck of the lone guard, sending him into a deep sleep.

 

"That's one down..." Bozer murmured.

 

"Yeah and you don't have much time until the other two arrive..." Mac informed.

 

"Boze, take this guy's rifle, two part attack, you knock it the first guy over the head and I take the other one. Might not be quite as silently as before but definitely more quietly than shooting them. Riles, you tie him up in the meantime." Jack ordered.

 

"Guys... ETA about 10 seconds, get ready..." Mac slowly counted down the moment of the guards' arrival and almost exactly like Jack had planned it, they knocked them out as well without drawing too much attention to them.

 

"I have a radio... might help to keep track of the other guards..." Riley informed her team while quickly running down the hallway.

 

"That's good, Riley, keep it close, it might help us more than we can know later." Mac said.

 

"Copy that."

 

They headed through the underground level of the compound without any more issues and Riley quickly worked her computer magic to open the high security safe to retrieve the intel they had come for.

 

"Alright, that's that... now let's get out of here." Jack grinned happily and just as the older had said it, Mac noticed a commotion on one of the screens.

 

"Yeah about that... they found the tied up guards, they are onto you now, forget about stealth, get out of there now!" the blond called out, watching the other three scramble down the hallway as fast as they were able to. They made it to ground level but there they ran into a dead end with several hostiles shooting at them.

 

"Shit, buddy, we really could use a hand here now..." Jack snapped back, taking shot after shot at their enemies, keeping them at bay for the moment and Riley and Bozer safe.

 

"Yeah I hear you, damn it..." Mac's mind started racing, his gaze skipping between the video feeds. "Boze, I need your eyes now... give me a full inventory of everything you see and can get your hands on without putting yourself at risk." Mac told his friend, closed his eyes then to concentrate on the things being listed.

 

It wasn't much and most definitely a much more difficult situation than anything they had tried before.

"Okay, Boze, Riley, this is going to be tricky... Jack, how are we looking, you good to keep them occupied a little longer?"

 

"Not going to lie, buddy, you better hurry up, I still have a couple of rounds left but this won't hold for long..." the older said, sounding a little muffled, as if he was talking through clenched teeth.

 

Mac didn't comment on that but turned his attention back to Riley and Bozer.

"Riley, you still have that radio? I need you to crack it open... Boze, you grab that fire extinguisher and the other things you had close by..." As quickly as he was able to, Mac explained to the other two step by step what to do with the things they had.

 

"Got it, anything else?" Riley asked as she curled one of the copper wires from the radio around the contraption they had made.

 

"I sure hope not, I have only one shot left!" Jack interrupted the science lesson.

 

"Copy that, Jack. But no Riley, this should be ready to go... this is a two part distraction bomb... point it in the direction of the bad guys, make sure it hits something solid on the other end. That's important! Now cut the release of the fire extinguisher..." Mac told them and watched on the camera feed. He held his breath because if this didn't work, his family was in trouble.

 

As luck would have it, it worked well enough. The pressure of the fire extinguisher carried the whole thing across the room and upon impact the second mechanism with the radio engaged, blowing up what gas was still in the bottle. It wasn't a huge explosion, definitely not a deadly one but it was loud and distracting enough, especially with the remaining foam spray, for Jack, Riley and Bozer to quickly leave the building and hide in the treeline next to the compound.

 

"Phew... that was close..." Bozer sighed.

"Yeah it was but we made it, good job, all of you. Mac, we are about ready for exfil now." Jack added, a relieved laugh in his voice.

 

"You got it!" Mac confirmed, hitting the call button on his screen.

 

**

 

He too took a deep breath, swallowed his nerves before he turned around to look at Matty entering the war room. Her forehead was pulled into a deep, thoughtful frown, her whole stance serious.

 

"Well?" Mac finally asked, not able to take the suspense any longer. "Did we pass?"

 

Matty watched him for another moment, then a small smile played over her lips.

"You did for now, I'm impressed by what I saw. But I'm not going to lie, blondie, this is still going to take a lot of work and the first time an op goes sideways, I'm pulling the plug on this arrangement, understood?"

 

The younger nodded, sighing softly. It's not exactly what he had wanted to hear but he certainly understood where Matty was coming from. The safety of her agents was her priority, has to be for the Phoenix to work the way it does, but he was sure that, given some more time, they could make this work.

 

Going on missions for days, maybe even weeks was out of the question for him now. He didn't want to leave David behind all the time, he was a father now and he had responsibilities he was taking very seriously. Not to mention the ever present danger of not returning at all, he didn't want to risk it if it could be helped at all.

 

He had contemplated quitting the Phoenix entirely of course but this work, the good they were doing, meant too much to him to give it up completely. So he had thought about it, talked with Jack, Bozer and Riley about it, and together they had come up with a plan they could present to Matty.

 

The main idea was that Mac would get involved a lot more in R & D at the Phoenix itself. Working in his lab, building stuff to help his team and other agents on their missions. He could easily include a separated area in his lab where David could stay during the day. Aside from that, Mac would be doing consultation work, help other teams on their missions, walk them through quick and dirty field repairs for their gear if needed.

 

All that had been the easy parts, the more complicated part was getting involved in his own team's missions without physically getting involved in them. The nature of the missions they had taken up over the years had usually been the more complicated, more dangerous ones with lacking information, leaning heavily on Mac's ability to improvise his way out of tight spots. The number of these kinds of missions had gotten reduced already because, with Mac missing, they were one team member short and neither of them had been comfortable with the idea of replacing Mac with someone new. That's how Mac had started teaching Bozer and Riley, working with them on systematically observing their surroundings, spotting things that might come in handy if needed and tell him about it. Mac would come up with things to build from the random things they had, talking them through the actual building part.

 

It had taken them the better part of the past half a year to get in sync with each other enough that Bozer and Riley had the basic things like building smoke bombs or flash granades from cleaning supplies down without Mac's help and were able to quickly follow his precise instructions to build other things. They had waited to present that particular part of Mac's further involvement at the Phoenix to Matty until that worked mostly without a hitch.

 

Matty hadn't exactly been thrilled. She hadn't been thrilled with Mac's improvisations from the beginning, to put those improvisations in other agent's hands... well, it took some convincing.

 

That's how this whole trial run had come to pass. Matty had prepared the training area, briefed the agents playing the bad guys herself and had sent Jack, Riley and Bozer in there blind only with the objective of retrieving intel from a safe. It had been a realistic training exercise with the only distinction that they were shooting with paint ball ammo and they weren't going too far with the hand-to-hand, all the agents involved knew the limits of these exercises. Calling for exfil had been the conclusion of the test.

 

She had observed the whole process, watched the screens, listened to the team, checked reaction times and everything to assess if an arrangement like that could actually work in the field.

 

"I understand Matty, it's all I can ask for, really." Mac dropped on the couch, exhausted even though he hadn't even left the room.

 

"All my concerns aside, Mac. You did good, all of you! And I will make sure to tell Riley and Bozer the same thing. I would never have expected that you could pull something like this off."

 

"Thanks, Matty. I appreciate it. But really Riley and Bozer had the hard part, not me. How's David doing?" he asked finally, already longing to hold his son in his arms again.

 

"He's doing fine, Mac. He's been on his best behaviour, I am told and Jill had the time of her life babysitting him. She'll bring him up any minute now, he was sleeping when you activated the exfil button and she didn't want to wake him." the older woman said with a smile.

 

"Good, good. Not that I had any doubts!" Mac grinned happily.

 

"I'm sure you didn't..." Matty shook her head fondly at the smug expression on the younger's face. Half a year ago, when David was still a new addition to their family, she would never have expected Mac to grow this happy and comfortable in his new role. It sent a small stab through her heart to know that this amazing young man never really experienced something like this himself when he was still a child. Not to mention that she still was protecting the man who abandoned Mac when he needed him the most.

 

A piercing squeal, followed by a little commotion outside of the war room startled the director out of her thoughts.

Mac was already on his feet the moment he heard David, stayed inside the room however, watching the scene through the windows.

 

The three remaining members of his team had returned from the training area, sweaty and covered in dust and dirt despite it not being a real mission, to gather in the war room for Matty's feedback.

 

However, Jill must have arrived at about the same time with David and his little boy had zeroed in on Jack like a miniature homing beacon. Mac chuckled, watching Jack sprint the last few steps to meet Jill and her precious cargo halfway.

"Aw look at you, my favourite little munchkin! Have you been a good boy while daddy and the others had to work? Of course you have, right?" the older cooed, gently taking David from Jill's arms.

 

"He's been a proper little angel, Jack, absolutely no complaints here!" the blond woman smiled.

 

"Thanks, Jill!" the man said, turning a little bit with the baby, so Riley and Bozer could greet their baby nephew as well.

The smile on Jill's face grew into a proper beam again, like it tended to do for a while now. It had taken a long time and the arrival of baby David for Jack to finally learn her name and to actually call her by it as well.

 

"No problem at all." she grinned, turning around again to return back to her workstation.

 

"Oi, how about you get your butts inside! I'd like to finish this debrief today... not to mention that someone's waiting to have his son returned to him." Matty called through the open door at the others. They all turned around to look at Mac, who had his arms crossed, his head tilted to the side and one expectantly raised eyebrow.

 

"Look, daddy's waiting for you too, sweetie..." Riley said to David when they finally walked into the war room.

 

"Waiting indeed, desperately..." Mac sighed exaggeratedly but took the time to hug all three of the others before taking his son. "You were awesome, guys!" he said, pressing a kiss to David's temple. "You too!"

 

"I second that, guys. As I was telling Mac before, you did really well and I'm absolutely impressed with what you achieved here. Against all of my expectations, this might just work. Good job!"

 

"Thanks, Matty! I do have one suggestion for further consideration though, can we make a pair of these high definition camera glasses standard issue for us when we try something like that in the field? I really wasn't always entirely sure if I was doing correctly what Mac was telling us to do. That way he would be able to see what we're seeing at the same time..." Bozer said, making that point immediately to not risk forgetting about it later on again.

 

"Good idea, Boze... why haven't we thought about this before?" Mac grinned, bumping his fist with his best friend for the idea.

 

"Well, every running system has still room for improvement, especially one as precarious as this, so yes, Boze, consider it done. If it helps keeping you guys safe, you'll get it." Matty grinned.

 

"Awesome!" the man in question cheered.

 

"Okay, now that the hard part is over, how about we go and celebrate our new and improved team work?" Jack suggested, sensing, just like Mac did, that an 'I'm hungry' tantrum was fast approaching from the smallest occupant in the room.

 

"All for it, let's go!" Riley agreed, following the older man out of the room once again.

 

"You coming, grandma?" Jack called back inside, a cheeky grin on his face once again.

 

"I swear to god, Dalton!" Matty hissed back. "Fine, I'll be there in a few!"

 

"You know, she's acting all tough and annoyed but secretly she loves it..." Jack drawled as they were walking away.


End file.
